Unbound By Beauty

After lightning struck their 130-year-old elm tree, Anthony Minstein and his wife Vycki Goldenberg-Minstein decided to turn a once-thriving piece of nature into a decorative work of art. Finding the number for local artist Joe Autry, the couple asked the sculptor to breathe new life into the tree. Over the course of about two weeks, Autry ground and chiseled away at the elm, revealing an intricately designed sculpture standing almost 11 feet tall. While studying to earn his teacher’s certificate in yoga instructing, he became inspired to name his creation “Unbound by Beauty.”

“I come out and look at it from different angles, different viewpoints, different times of the day,” Mr. Minstein said of the finished product. “You see different elements, different images, and it truly is what I wanted in the backyard: Something that stimulates creativity; stimulates your thinking and your emotion.”

Autry began studying bronze sculpting when he was 17 and has traveled overseas to Russia and Serbia to create visual masterpieces out of ice and salt. Several of Autry’s tree sculptures can be found throughout the city in residential areas. For more information on Autry, visit joeautrysculpture.com or e-mail autryjoe@yahoo.com.